Here Is Gone
by agoodcupoftea
Summary: Junpei always knew that it would come to this.


Disclaimer: While the plotline is personal, Digimon belongs to Akiyoshi Hongo, and "Here Is Gone" belongs to Goo Goo Dolls

Warning: Gee, guess by the title or the fact that you selected "M" rated stories to be displayed on your search.

I suggest you read my other Digimon one-shots, Generation Desenchantee" and "Home", as well as chapter 7 of "Love After Life" if you want to know where the hell Junpei's children, about whose impending birth you will read in "Home" are, or this won't make much sense.

Here Is Gone

"_You and I got something  
But it's all then it's nothing to me  
Yeah  
I got my defences  
When it comes to your intentions for me  
Yeah  
And we wake up in the breakdown  
Of the things we never thought we could be  
Yeah_

I'm not the one who broke you  
I'm not the one you should fear  
What have you got to move you darling?  
I thought I lost you somewhere  
But you were never really ever there at all

And I want to get free  
Talk to me  
I can feel you falling  
And I wanted to be  
All you need  
Somehow here is gone

I have no solution  
To the sound of this pollution in me  
Yeah  
And I was not the answer so forget you if ever thought it was me  
Yeah

I'm not the one who broke you  
I'm not the one you should fear  
What have you got to move you darling?  
I thought I lost you somewhere  
But you were never really ever there at all

And I want to get free  
Talk to me  
I can feel you falling  
And I wanted to be  
All you need  
Somehow here is gone

And I don't need a fall out  
Of all the past that's here between us  
And I'm not holding on  
And all your lies weren't enough to keep me here

And I want to get free  
Talk to me  
I can feel you falling  
And I wanted to be  
All you need  
Somehow here is gone  
And I want to get free  
Talk to me  
I can feel you falling

I know it's out there  
I know it's out there  
I can feel you falling  
I know it's out there  
I know it's out there  
Somehow here is gone  
I know it's out there  
I know it's out there  
Somehow here is gone" –Goo Goo Dolls- _"Here Is Gone"_

Despite it being almost nine o'clock at night, leaving Junpei to walk through the slum of a neighbourhood in which he lived, alone, in the dark, he was in such high spirits that neither that fact, nor what awaited when he opened his front door, could possibly wipe away the smile on his face, or so he thought.

He'd just been with his chosen group, whom he actually thought of more as family than his own blood, celebrating.

Takuya, Izumi, Kouji and Kouichi had (just barely in Takuya's case) just passed their entrance exams and would all be following him in attending Tokyo University.

Neither Takuya nor Izumi had a major planned, but they chose to use their time as undecided to get the core classes, such as maths and sciences, over with and out of the way.

Kouichi had wanted to major in art, but he felt that such a degree would be utterly useless, he liked music, as did most everyone else, but no. He wanted to be able to turn around and support his mother. He chose to major in German, his second language. Translators were paid well.

Kouji, with his passion for aesthetics having become increasingly evident over the years, chose Cosmetology as his major. It would be a one-year course, though, meaning he'd leave the others. So he chose to minor in music, as his love of playing the guitar had never faded.

Junpei would be going on his second year at the University, and his major was Business. Junpei knew that his heart was far too soft to aspire becoming a CEO or anything, but that wasn't his dream, anyway.

He'd watched the immigrant side of his family never able to achieve, simply because they were immigrants. In their careers, if one could even call them that, he'd grown up watching them suffer unfair prejudice, and denied the rights and respect that were automatically bestowed upon their Japanese brethren.

His dream was to someday, open a global market of some sorts, perhaps a curiosities shop, employ no one but foreigners, and give them a place to work where they could be treated as they deserved to be, with fairness, equality, and respect.

He began humming a jovial Van Halen tune, these thoughts filling his mind, as he unlocked the door.

"Mum, I'm home," he called as he shut the door.

His mum lay slumped on one side of the couch, her arm dangling.

This was not what perturbed him. Nor were the usual mess of pill and liquor bottles at her feet. No, what made him race over to her was the bottle of liquor, smashed beneath her dangling hands, the contents she considered so precious bathing the cheap plywood floor.

"Mum?" He shook her gently. He put his hand in front of her nose and mouth. He couldn't detect any implication of breathing.

Mentally, he prepared himself to perform CPR. He checked her pulse at the base of her neck. No pulse.

Shuffling through the mess at their feet (He'd worry about that later), he laid her lengthwise across the couch. He positioned his hands, opened her mouth (the lack of resistance was a tad eerie) and began to pump her chest, breathing into her mouth on counts timed in his head.

After five minutes, still, she was unresponsive.

Driven forth by sheer adrenaline, he called an ambulance.

"Hello. One-ten. State your emergency."

"I-I think my mother had an overdose."

"Okay, we'll send an ambulance," the operator continued calmly, "What is your address?"

"755, Mizudori, Saitama 3-chome," Junpei answered shakily.

"All right, we'll be there." And she hung up.

_Of course she's not going to keep me on the line for the two hours it takes them to show up_, Junpei thought bitterly.

After all, when the little girl who was playing in her yard got shot in the drive-by last winter, it took the ambulance nearly an hour before they decided that they had nothing better to do than to help the little peasant.

Junpei remembered that quite vividly. After all, he was the one helping Haruka's mum replace her front door which had been broken down when that loan shark came looking for her father.

Both Junpei and Ms. Kaneda had been trying to keep her awake, but she slowly closed her eyes, her hand slipping from her mum's grasp, and finally, she just fell limp in Junpei's arms.

Help didn't show for another forty-two minutes.

Junpei sat on the armchair beside the couch, dropped his face in his hands, and began to take long, steady breaths.

He looked over at her once more.

Nothing.

He knew…she was dead.

After a mere eternity had passed, flashing lights shone through the window.

Junpei opened the door to find an ambulance and a police car.

The paramedics came in with a stretcher, and the police came in with cameras.

"When did you find her like this," a policeman asked.

Resisting the urge to make an angry comeback, Junpei simply answered in monotone,"Nine-thirty tonight."

The police finished taking pictures, and the paramedics loaded her on the stretcher.

At the hospital, the doctor did the only thing he could do.

"Time of death, eight thirty-seven."

Doctor (whatever the hell his name was) turned to Junpei.

"We're going to perform an autopsy," he half-stated, half-asked.

"A simple blood test should tell you all you need to know," Junpei answered. He sounded gloomy, but truth be told, he'd always figured that this would happen. It had just been a question of when, and now that question had its answer.

"We're going to need to take you in for questioning," Officer I-don't-care-anymore said.

Junpei nodded, and was taken to the station.

Detective dumb-fuck seemed like he was out to get Junpei, so he told the balding vulture everything.

He told him about when his father and sister died in the car crash, that his mother started drinking.

How she started stealing pills from the medicine carts at work.

How she started shooting up heroin.

How she started beating him.

How she lost job after job, and once even got her nursing licence suspended.

How she squandered the money left by her husband, and wound them up in a slum.

How, when he could finally touch the money his father left, he repeatedly tried to put her in treatment and recovery programs, but then she'd just beat him more, once he even blacked out for an hour after getting an iron to the head.

How she threatened to kill them both.

How he planned to try again that night.

But it was too late.

"…and that's it," Junpei finished, looking with deadpanned eyes straight at the crow.

Disappointed that he was not going to make an arrest, the detective sighed.

He got up and opened the door.

"You're free to go," he said.

Junpei thanked him, reassuring him that he was just doing his job, and was escorted out of the building.

He returned to his house alone.

He cleaned up the mess left behind by substance abuse…for the last time.

He looked around the house in which he'd spent the last seven years of his life.

He didn't want to be there anymore.

It was over.

He remembered his grandmum back in the Philippines.

Hopefully, she was still alive.

Then, there would be two mourners.

He'd call her in the morning; it was late, there as well.

He went up the stairs, and into the walk-in closet, the only semblance of a room which his mother had allowed him.

Still in his day-clothes, he laid his head on the pillow and lay beneath the blanket on the floor, as his mother had felt he'd deserved.

He had no dreams. The last eight years played over in his head that night.

He didn't want to stay here.

Because here is gone.

~Fin~


End file.
